Mercedes-AMG is inching even more squarely into the crosshairs of the established sports brands. Or rather, Bentley and Porsche are edging closer to Benz’s territory with more emphasis larger, more comfortable offerings.
That last sentence applies more to Porsche as that is largely Bentley’s wheelhouse anyway. And since we’ve neatly pivoted to the Stuttgart purveyor or sports cars, its Panamera might have a new competitor from Affalterbach.
Essentially, it might be exploring avenues for a four-door super saloon and using its highly regarded GT as a base and extracting roughly 447kW from its 4.0-litre bi-turbo V8 to accommodate the additional heft.
Autocar UK reports that such a vehicle, tentatively dubbed the GT4, is being positioned for a 2017 debut to coincide with AMG’s 50th anniversary before being offered for sale in 2019. Despite obviously sharing more than many a component with the two-door GT coupe, enough differences will exist to count it as the third dedicated series production model which began with the SLS.
Specifically, it will likely leverage Benz’s modular rear architecture (MRA) to properly add wheelbase and overall length to the AMG GT’s front half without sacrificing chassis cohesion. Of course, much calibration work will also have to factored into its development. Thankfully, they’ve demonstrated to be very adept in that department, rivalling even Porsche.
Despite comparisons to Bentley’s Continental GT, which does have four seats, a cleaner comparison might be to BMW’s M6 Gran Coupe or Aston Martin’s Rapide. Mercedes-Benz will likely have to find ways to differentiate the AMG GT4 to not overlap too much with the estate versions of the C 63 or E 63 as well.
The bi-turbo V8 is also rumoured to be offered in varying states of tune for the GT4, either with or without the 4Matic all-wheel drive system pairing. What remains ambiguous is whether the transmission will be a 7-speed automatic (used in the E 63) or the 7-speed dual-clutch (used in the AMG GT). It all depends how Mercedes-Benz chooses to position the GT4 - racy saloon or high-performance tourer.
They way AMG is rolling now, the possibility of a four-door Panamera rival severely hurting Porsche’s sales cannot be dismissed. Its tighter integration with Mercedes-Benz has led to strong sales of AMG-line models as well as the V6-powered ’43 series.
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